RPGM - Completed - Dark Hero Party [v1.01] [U-ROOM / Kagura Games]

disclaimer: i never played the revenge ending though i want to at some point, however i played the rest of what the game hast o offer

ok, i'll just come out and say i really enjoyed the game, and i think it lives up to its reputation

you should not be playing this if you dont like rape, coercion, corruption and most importantly - playing a very weak MC, the point of which (his weakness) is the very reason the girls he were closest to ended up being taken from him

however if you are at minimum okay with these things you should definitely play it, even better if you like this type of NTR

the game story is basically that there are powerful humans given dragon powers who are helping to fight the demon lord and one of your childhood friends is one of them and you also have a few other girls close to you in your day to day life in the village, but then this other guy with dragon powers called Thrash invades the village and him and his goons and trusted comrades take the MC and his girls (voluntarily albeit) with them to his town pretending to fight the good fight against the demon lord, however he has more sinister intentions and this decision would lead to the NTR of all the girls the MC was close to

i liked the story, i liked the porn, i liked the setting, i liked the characters, i liked mostly everything with a few nitpicks here and there but nothing crazy. if you want healthy criticism you can see the user "Yzmael"'s review of the game though he obviously dislikes it more than me. however there's one thing he says about Lotia's character which i will be disagreeing with, you can find my disagreement in the spoiler tag below:

i disagree with Lotia's decision to sexually "challenge" Thrash as being inherently dumb. yes, on face value it does seem dumb, but the whole point of this was: either Lotia kills Thrash with the chastity spell, or Lotia falls to Thrash. this is completely and totally reasonable in my opinion! think about it, Thrash is established many times over as the most powerful Dracovalise. the only thing that could stop him is the overwhelming force of multiple other Dracovalises, which isnt an option. so Lotia has to try really anything she can to stop Thrash, and it just so happens that she has only one thing that just might be able to do it - her chastity spell of death. think about it realistically: how else was she able to stop Thrash? her gamble sets up the NTR perfectly, and thus i stand in defence of this plot point

the other thing i will say is that i didnt get the pure priestess trope at all. not once did that thought enter my mind, i thought she was just more of a innocent mage type of trope. in case you forgot, Krimina was supposed to be the pure priestess, not Lotia. i think i can agree that perhaps Lotia's specific trope was really ambiguous, and i think that's thanks to a lack of understanding her backstory and character, but i think its very obvious that wasn't her trope. if you think about it anyway.. isnt she supposed to break down character wise when she gets corrupted by Thrash? it would not be out of character for her to change character the more she falls into his sexcapades. maybe i can agree the MC is too stupid to properly argue against Lotia's behaviour and choices but well, you can't really expect much from a character who's sum total dialogue is just "Mngh!", though i suppose that isnt much of an excuse

alright that's it from me. play the game you wont regret it! at least i would definitely recommend it

Its a game that wants you to get out, touch grass, and contribute to society. After teaching you the art of Cuckholding.

If you kill, its a skill issue, oh but if you blackmail, steal, drugging, rapes, shaming, drugging (yes), thats considered strategic and intelligent. Absolute Cinema.
In this game, you get to enjoy and experience all of them, except you're on the receiving end.

The game offers quite a refreshing perspective on how useless I actually am, because I am, maybe it did make me more motivated with determination to touch grass. I'm also intrigued at the fact that ethics and social justice really doesn't give a fuck. The devs did great at depicting real life. The Dragons are my favourite idols.

Good thing no one would question the loops such as:
1. where are the rest of the Heroes, why are there only such few dragons
2. how the heck did all the Heroes coincidentally met in this small sandbox world
3. no one questioned the ruling of the dragons for the past 10000 centuries and why even ritual
4. who triumphed over the dark army :Th0nk:
5. why were BOTH SIDES fighting in the first place aside from being blinded by Balance Law, and BOTH SIDES then just end up saying, eh we can get over it, but still fights anyway.
6. Ace do be winning still.

Impressive loli plot.

Gameplay: 5/10
Music: 4/10
Art: 6/10
Story: 5/10

well that was depressing, and i like it.
I got all ending took me like 4-5 hours
and i found the conclusion based on my taste and opinion

Pros:
+ Very depressing
+ Alot of NTR
+ Great characters (Aini and another char which i cant say because it contains spoiler, but ill just say she has white hair)
+ Good art

Cons:
- Pathetic MC and not enough freedom to change the fate of the heroines
- REPETITIVE combat system
- Weird ass maps that can be unnecesarily confusing

if you like hardcore ntr, violation, and an overall depressing game, this is for you.

Tettering between a 3 and a 4, did not a expect a story where I became invested. Some of the actions from heroines got me confused tho

Got ending 4 and the art is great. I want to say the other endings wont be as nice.

Looking more great art like this

What a bizarre experience, this game. From start to finish it's chock full of shit that is going to sucker punch you.

I'll be discussing the game in full, so there'll be spoilers in this review. If you want a simple suggestion on rather you should play it or not... Don't. Here's why: This game is not a good NTR game. The art is really well-done and even the soundtrack is surprisingly good. The NTR? It's not good, it's painful. This game thrives on showing you how miserable the protagonist is in a world where everyone is significantly stronger than him. The RPGM mechanics are just a vehicle to reiterate this over and over again in every single moment the game can. It repeatedly tells you that the protagonist is weak every at every opportunity it has.

So in essence, if you like well-built, logical NTR this game is not for you. If you like nonsense, "arcade" NTR, it's not for you either because the game has a message it's trying to tell with all the bullshit the protagonist goes through.

If you like sadistic, hard NTR where there is literally no good ending and a shit-ton of rape, this game is for you. If you like mind-break, this game might be for you. Otherwise, don't bother.

That being said, spoilers ahead.

Now, let's cover the good stuff:

++ The characters are all in their own somewhat interesting, except for the one character you should care about(but we'll talk about that later). Tori, the sister character, is imo the strongest and most painful NTR situation of all as her arc is somewhat believable. I liked Ace as a villain and the Demon Dragon as well, to the point where I wish this was telegraphed earlier to the player. Aine's story is just plain fucking sadness and even the MC has a definitive arc made for him. The only issue is that his arc is very long and extended for no apparent reason.

++ The art is amazing and all the sex scenes are great, hands-down some of the best I've seen from a 2DCG game.

++ The pacing is actually really good despite what others complain about. It's true that the game requires a lot of patience and it ends up putting a lot of padding in places where there isn't need, but when you ignore these small issues the game has a good pacing to the story-telling and steadily builds up to the main act of everything going to shit. Aine and Tori in particular have great pacing in their stories as the game steadily builds up to them being fucked in the head from being repeatedly raped. It's not really something "believable" but it's better than some games just straight up going to the excuse of the female characters being too horny.

I've already mentioned the soundtrack so I won't go into detail about it.

Now, the bad:

-- Another review here covers it perfectly well that at some point, you just become apathetic to the misery of the MC. Which is a massive problem, because the whole game's story hinges on you thinking that the MC is going through hell. Personally, I blame the lack of autonomy from your choices and the repeatedly impossible battles you face. Eventually, you just won't care to even try to win anymore. Despair is built upon hope and after just three episodes you will immediately realize that there's literally no reason to hope that the MC will achieve anything. He just gets his ass beaten over and over again for no reason through impossible battles. I get it, the point is to drive across that the protagonist is powerless, but that doesn't really make him miserable, just weak and deserving of what's happening to him. If you don't give me something to believe in, I'll just grow apathetic to everything happening to him.

-- Unfortunately the good characters couldn't carry the remainder of the cast for the life of them. I loved Aine and Tori, and wished for there to be at least a good ending for them if anything, but my brother in Jebediah Christopher, I fucking hated Lotia, Thrash and Assym. Let's talk about each one of them and why they in particular absolutely ruin my experience in this game.


The problem is that all of these characters are crucial to the story and in the moments where they're supposed to shine the most, they just stumble and fall or just do nonsensical stuff that doesn't seem to apply to their characters at all.

Usually, I wouldn't bat an eye at this stuff, but this game clearly wants us to focus on it's story and not just it's porn, so I feel like I'm entitled to comment on all this. Even the Revenge part of the story just feels lacking, where the protagonist doesn't seem to understand that the problem isn't Thrash, but the world itself that is fucked up. I would've loved to see him devolve into an actual demonic character purely driven by his rage against the world itself, not just people like Thrash. This motherfucker doesn't even mention all the other sacks of shit that he crosses with throughout the story. Grey betrays him and he acts like he doesn't care about it, Schrum at least dies but it feels lacking given all the evil shit he did, Ace manages to not only escape but live a peaceful life with his sister, Lotia and Thrash just die instead of being punished for their evils as they should. Games like these don't understand that rage is an incredibly powerful emotion that doesn't just end when you finally kill the person you hate. Lotia's death was supposed to drive the MC into an even greater anger against the Demon Dragon who just used him, but no, he's okay with it.

The whole revenge ending's writing feels critically lacking in logical consistency compared to the rest of the story really, which was already on shoddy grounds.

This is an old-ass game and I feel like I'm just necro-posting with this long as hell review, but given that it's considered one of the greatest NTR games and this is one of the genres I like the most, I felt like I should try to write a bit here. I'll give it praise for at least having the balls to actually be a cruel NTR game where your loved ones are taken from you by force and not just a glorified swinging game.

TL;DR: This game has a crapton of rape, a hard-NTR where the MC is a miserable loser, some nonsensical plotlines that make me want to smash my keyboard and some very good storylines with a couple of interesting characters. If this is your thing, go for it, but I can't in a conscious mind suggest anyone to play this game due to the excessive nature of the whole RPGM stuff.

This one deserves a 4 star. The game could use a bit more finesse, but the gfx is good, the story is quite interesting.

the dev was nice enuf to put in a revenge ending for the MC. overall, a fairly well put together package.

I like NTR, im a sadistic fuck that enjoy misery that comes for NTR scenarios.

I can see you reading this and looking confused at the score, well at one point the ever increasing misery stoped being exciting and became boring. Imagine that you like sugar and are in a sweets buffet. They start giving you plates of cakes, a good cake. They bring more and more slices of the same cake, always a little bigger and little sweeter, at one point they start bringing you entire cakes of the same taste but super sweet.

There will be a moment in wich you either gonna get sick and stop eating or die from diabetes, this game is NTR diabetes.

The games spends hours upon hours to beat you over the head with the same message "the world is cruel, those in power are cruel, you're worthless and you're going to lose everything important to you" that it becomes just boring repetition.

there are two examples that are just agregious


Then the game has the gal to ask you to grind if you want to see true ending that isnt really worth it, except to see Ice gril call out the stupidest character in the game.

The first time between Trash and Lotia is admitedly pretty hot and is the only scene that i ocasionally go back to but is honestly not worth all the stupid lead up and repetitive scenarios.

I not only dislike this as great ntr concept done wrong but especially as a depressive story done wrong.

One thing that makes a depressive story good is hope. Give the audience enought hope to belive that despite all the shit that has happened and will happen, things can end well. Even if the audience catches up to you cycle of hope and misery (im not gonna say the other word, this isnt danganronppa), they are already hooked to the rolle coaster and are curious to see the end.

There is no hope here, there never was.
This is no rollercoster, is just a free fall of misery that eventually become either too much or too boring to be worth the time.

Alright mate, are you comfortable? Got a pillow and a drink? Then get ready cause I got a lot to say about this title, and most of it, it's not good.

Dark Hero Party is made to upset you, infuriate you, generate some thought on hopelessness, despair, and remind you that the lords of THIS universe, are definitely not conspiring for the protagonist's happiness (or yours really). In other words, the game sets itself apart from other experiences where the good guys win in the end and get the girls. This paragraph right here, sums up all the good in Dark Hero Party. It's different and wants to show you how it feels, when fate itself is against you. If you have the patience you might "learn"(be influenced by, really) a thing or 2 about right and wrong or good and evil, when playing this game.

Moving to the bad:

- NTR - I'm gonna be brutally honest I don't know shit about NTR, but if you ask me, 90% of what I see marked as NTR these days doesn't qualify as such in my radar. There's no NTR here. The protagonist and the priestess type heroine barely have a connection or anything in common. She is so "stupidly out of his league", that I was actually rooting for the "bad guy" to take her.

I will concede that the sister is well done, and losing someone you love, as in a close relative, also counts as NTR, but the obvious focus of the work (main selling point) is the pink haired girlfriend (sarcastic air quotes on the girlfriend classification).

- The protagonist is a regular guy - What in the actual crap were they( the developers) thinking, when they made the protagonist, the only normal person in the world? Everyone else is super strong, was gifted powers by dragons, and has a dick they makes porn stars envious. Why does he keep comparing himself to people who are quite literally better than him, when those people got to where they are through "magical means" and no effort.

The answer is to piss you (the player) off. Let me put it this way: If my wife cheats/leaves me, to go live with SUPERMAN, I'd tell her, "honey go for it". He is stronger, faster, smarter, better looking, richer, and likely more capable sexually (doubtful) than me. I couldn't even blame her for doing so, and I would not compare myself to SUPERMAN.

You think I could exercise restraint if one of these 2d anime girls, suddenly got out of the screen all lustful and ready ? You would be wrong, and I'm not PC enough(or any amount) to claim otherwise. The stupid protagonist doesn't understand this, and he just cries in his own misery over and over again, like someone did him wrong, when they didn't. Give up buddy, go home find the second regular person of this world and marry her/him/it/other. (In the game's credit this is actually possible, but I only saw it later on).

- The RPG side of things completely disregards basic rules and player satisfaction - It's on purpose, but that is no excuse. You (the protagonist) can't get strong in Dark Hero Party. You can't get good loot in DHP. You can't get good skills in DHP. Even your party members who are competent struggle against enemies. Why? SCALING. What type of scaling? The one that might give you homicidal tendencies. You can't win many fights in DHP, because the enemies have the power of "higher numbers" on their side (They cheat, basically).

Forget any NTR, this right here is the stuff that gets you a one way ticket to a mental health institution. The effect of disregarding a loot/level up cycle, and constant losses HAS an actual effect on the player's psyche. Sure I can take a neutral stance at any fiction, and be fine with everything they throw at me, but in this case I don't want to. I thought I hated the idea of level scaling, ever since I grasped the concept in OBLIVION, but I was wrong in thinking that was the worse that could be done. Straight up cheating in favor of the A.I is apparently a thing.

- The good stuff requires several restarts - Why Lord, Why? They have something (very interesting) to impart to the player, but you will only see it, after quite a bit of repetition and multiple playthroughs. Now please take a look at the two negative factors I mentioned above. Add them to this reality. Now try to picture me playing this game to completion. IT WAS HELL. TORTURE. I WANT (not 1 but) 10 refunds STEAM !!!

In all seriousness this game is designed for someone far more patient and tolerant. I'm old, grumpy and set in my ways. I'm fine with mixed bags, I'm not fine with having to sort through a ton of crap, to get to the good stuff.

Right. I don't recommend this, and I'm gonna go there and say, be very careful with any reviews on the game (this one included) cause people like to parrot the same crap like it was a given truth. The NTR is not the problem here (well, advertising a tag that is not recognized by the player can be a problem, I suppose). The reversing of the formula "the universe is conspiring for your happiness", and the "good stuff" being barred by hours of misery are the problem here.

I could go on, and it would mostly be complaints. No score, but you can definitely call this one an experience (a terrible one). Try it if you feel rebellious. Don't try it, if what I said echoed with you.

This game, honestly isn't bad. I don't normally like NTR games, but I can throw that bias away depending on how things plays out. I will mention spoilers so it'll be tagged if you don't know.

But anyway, the game starts off with one of your typical MCs for these scenarios. This time it's a guy who is constantly considering himself to be weak, and others consider him to be weak as well. Story basically starts off introducing some characters with special powers granted by dragons, then it starts to really kick off the plot. But anyone that looked at the menu noticed a "despair" stat which hints at things to come.

So now we get into spoiler territory.

This is where the branching endings thing comes into play.

So yeah, the story is one hell of a train ride and I actually applaud it for trying to at least make it interesting. I do still feel like it's flawed, and honestly has even less suspension of belief even ignoring the fantasy elements. The gameplay is also somewhat challenging if you don't know what to do.

But with both it's high points and low points, I'd have to give it a 3 out of 5. And this is coming from someone that normally hates NTR. The flaws stick out too much and if you're like me even hoping for a good ending... There is one depending on your perspective, but that doesn't count as a "good" ending to me.

overall is a nice NTR game that serves it's purpose but has mostly terrible endings.

4 stars because the girls are smoking hot and the h-scenes are great for "release"

review from an avid NTR lover/enjoyer

the good:
the girls are hot and beautiful
h-scenes are hot and steamy
I like Tori and Aina (they deserve a happy ending)

the bad:
most endings are bad
no happy ending (only acceptable ending)
I HATE Lotia



if you despise and hate NTR, don't even attempt to play this, it WILL break you.

Man... I thought it's gonna be something like god-tier NTR that gonna crush my soul because I've seen so many people commenting like that.

But nah... like most average NTR this game does not give me any reason to care about these girls they are like a stranger to me, except for the main heroin her route is kinda okay cuz you don't just go straight up to RAPE.

Maybe it's just because I've played NTR RPG 1&2 first (Especially 2) cuz you know why in that game they actually make you care about the heroines and the MC that's the reason why I cry so hard when I saw that true despair of an ending from that game.

Before playing i read all the reviews saying that this game was extremely somber, depressing, rock-bottom deep, etc...

Everything I saw here is an edgy game taking itself way too seriously. With such a dark story frame you expect cunning and deep characters. That's all the contrary. Every protagonists are illogical, reacting unnaccordingly to the severe situation they are in (the MC sister providing herself the drug that'll make her and her friends sex slaves, the nun not taking her escape and the girlfriend not even asking for help when a powerful prince went to the rescue). The worst of all is by far the MC. Gosh, this poor bastard is so lame he doesn't even deserve a face! At a moment in the game, after seeing all his beloved raped and drugged, after being heavily degraded and abused, he has the opportunity to kill or at least neutralize every antagonists without taking a single risk and even consider doing it in front of his nemesis. And what does this ding dong choose to do ? He saves everyone and allow the bad guys to turn all of his girls into perfect cock sleeves while arboring a surprised Pikachu face

After this exact moment I had no more empathy for the MC as he was responsible for his misery. I even had more sympathy for the blond macho and the loli hunter !

Porn was great tho - 3/5

Judging from my username, it's obvious i'm a sick degen who like NTR.

But this game... all I can say even for a seasoned NTR lover like myself, get hit pretty hard. This game literally deconstruct everything I expect from a typical NTR eroge to the extent you ponder and connect the storyline to how real life work. The alpha or rich get everything, your dream job, the girl you lust for, the car you can only dream of and so on.

All I can say, this is really a masterpiece.

I want to give the this experience a fair rating. but i must say this was a miserable experience to finish. somehow even more so if you want to best/hardest to get ending

The grind,the weak male lead,the rape,the depressing story.
you have to have resistance to girls being raped (it happens a lot is an understatement)
or be the type of person that doesn't mentally/emotionally invested in fiction.
at which point i ask why they are even bothering with games like this

Gameplay
i appreciate the custom art for this,not only being in the sex scenes, but also some battles. i didn't come across many enemies i personally recognized for other games.
which helps a lot in a battle heavy game like this.

the 2 biggest issues i had with battles in this, is how weak the main character is. which adds to how depressing the fights are without other characters.
and that battle experience only is given to characters active in each battle. this means late game you will have low level party members...

Story
Rape if i were to sum it up in 1 word. nothing that can be done about it either, it's the majority of this experience. sure there is a background evil demon lord thing that doesn't matter most of the time.
but this really went overkill for me.

when i say excessive rape. more than once a female character was raped for 24-27 hours strait. and i really mean no breaks men just kept using them nonstop.
which may make you hate certain moments that happen with that in mind.

there are several endings (about 6) 2 of which take even more effort to get than the other 4. so there is at least an ending which has some satisfaction.

Overall
this was a painful experience to play, i am drained of joy and glad it is finally over. but being fair it was an okay experience. the art is probably what kept me going.
personally would recommend skipping this and getting the pictures.
good luck if you decide to try anyway.

Great game the story was incredible and it actually made me feel something which was very unexpected from a game let alone a porn game. The art is nice and the combat is good

This is probably the game that taught me "porn games are still video games". Which is an odd statement, but there's always this sense that porn games are in some way, inferior to regular games. Like the concept that porn acting is worse than regular acting or all that other stuff, because the conceptual focus isn't 'good writing' or 'emotional stuff', but instead, pornography.

Dark Hero Party flipped the script. I have never been the same.

I can't get into why without spoilers, but this is possibly one of the most immersive games I've ever played. To get the best possible experience out of this game, you have to HATE it. You have to absolutely loathe it, ram your head into walls and try to progress and fail every single time, and you need to do this consistently. You are a worm, and you must struggle.

Only then will you get it.

This game fucking changed me, man.

Game thinks it's so smart but it really falls flat. Characters do a lot of nonsense things that really do not fit with their backstories. I suspect that they do this just so the ntr plot can be driven forward, it's ridiculous. Written like a japanese edgy teenager that blames him not getting laid because of inherent human evil or some crap hahahaha

This game is a hidden gem in ntr category. There are multiple endings so you can get good bad and worst ending(if you desire) .

The story (5/5) was really engaging with a little twist towards the end. It is 3-4 hours at max game including the grinding.
Characters behaviour is realistic unlike most games. Loved the mc's sister and his friend.

In a small, unremarkable village you will find a gem like no other. a gem so pure you will be gasping for air. many people have been allured in this small, unremarkable village, and they come out of it as a different person. some say they couldn't stare too long in the brilliance of this gem, while some have endured long enough to finally see what it really is. they lived to tell about this wonderful gem, but only to the ones that they deem worthy.

do you think you have what it takes to stare long enough to endure it or will you just irk and go away at its first shine just like the others? (btw don't play this version. kagura's release is very... liberal... and way too localized. look up for the fan-translation instead. it's title is "thug hero party". I partly blame this release for why some people are giving this a low score.)

This game tears you apart and then puts you back together at the very end.
4 and 6 will stop you from having that crushed soul feeling.

Best advise is to not stop half way in this game, if you start it, FINISH IT! til one of those endings ffs or you will be doomed! lol

I love ntr but this one has its flaws, i felt they didnt let you get used to the relationships before they moved straight to the heavy stuff, could of benefited from some building up.

I am going to avoid spoilers so i'll leave it there.
I rate this 8/10 (would be 10 if more build up and if the MC actually helped his sister a bit more)